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25 Ways to Show You Care
Bake extras
Recognize community members who give all year but never ask for anything in return, such as hospice volunteers, shelter workers or youth mentors. Gifts of homemade holiday treats, including fresh-baked breads or iced cookies, will look striking in pretty packaging. Fold colorful card stock to create easy containers. Accent with ribbons and tie on a meaningful message.
To make the bread packaging as shown, click on the link below for a free template and instructions. See "Scrumptious Quickbreads" for some of our favorite recipes.
Download a free package template
Broaden the guest list
Welcome college students, refugees or others who can't visit family for Thanksgiving. Des Moines resident Marilyn Hansen invited Iraqi brothers to dinner. "These two young men wanted to be a part of the American festivities," Marilyn says. At the table, she handed out questions--some were silly and some were serious--to start the conversation and learn about each other's cultures. Contact your local refugee-support organization or nearby university for help locating potential guests.
Know your neighbors
Invite neighbors you've known for years--and those who just moved in down the street--to a holiday get-together, such as an open house, chili cook-off or sledding party. A "give thanks" wreath will let guests know they're at the right place. Decorate with roses, pinecones, hypericum berries, champagne grapes and hydrangeas (keep flower stems in water picks).
Tag your charity
Many families share the tradition of drawing names for holiday gift giving. This year, draw charities. Invite family members to create tags that represent their favorite philanthropies. Then donate your time or money to the organization you draw--and look for creative volunteer opportunities.
Karen Fallstrom of Minneapolis hosts scrapbooking classes for kids at the nearby Ronald McDonald House. It's one of hundreds of houses the Illinois-based group licenses worldwide to host families of children undergoing hospital treatment. "Craft time gives the kids a chance to express themselves and to be away from the hospital," Karen says.
Share the bounty
Crafts store take-out boxes will turn leftovers into treats to go. Fall-theme stamps in natural-tone inks give the boxes a seasonal look. (Place aluminum foil or sandwich bags inside the boxes to prevent leaking.)
Reach out to family
Play together. Give your family one new board game each Thanksgiving, and plan a game night before Christmas. Relish the laid-back break from your holiday schedule.
Kids away from home? Keep in touch creatively. "Last year, all of my three kids were far away at Christmas, so I made each of them a calendar [through a photo website] with photos of themselves at home and added family quotes they know so well," says Connie Johnson of Leland, Iowa.
Pen your thanks
Make the holiday meal more meaningful by giving each guest a personal note of appreciation. Present the notes in envelopes as place cards. Or turn them into keepsakes: Print each message on colorful paper and wrap it around a candleholder. (But don't leave lit candles unattended.)
Appreciate your ancestry
Holidays are the perfect time to teach youngsters about their heritage. Make it an activity by cutting out copies of vintage baby photos and arranging them on the wall in a "family tree." Family members can guess who's who.
Personalize gifts
We recommend monogramming--an easy way to give gifts a just-for-you tone. Accent plain stationery with letter stamps in holiday-color inks. To make coasters, cover the bottom of a plain glass coaster with a computer-printed monogram design. Adhere it to the coaster with decoupage medium, which dries clear. Add a piece of felt to the bottom. For glass tumblers, tape a letter stencil to the outside of the glass; coat with white or frosted-glass spray paint to create a letter shape. All supplies and tools are available at crafts stores.
Capture memories
Start a scrapbook just for the holidays to record your family's traditions. Let each family member create a page with photos, recipes, journal entries or other holiday mementos. Add to the book every year.
Host a cooking class
Let Grandma (or the top family "chef") give the kids a mini lesson in cooking a family Thanksgiving favorite, such as pumpkin pie. Have fun with it, and record the demonstration as if she's doing a cooking show. You'll have the recipe secrets for years to come.
Give a nod to Mother Nature
Show how much you appreciate the outdoors by teaching a new generation to love it, too. Take kids on a woodland scavenger hunt that encourages exploration. List 10 items to find, such as a maple leaf, pinecone and animal tracks. Bring bags (and gloves) to pick up trash along the way.
Decorate poetically
Frame a sentiment of the season. We selected stanzas from three poems (Right, from top left): "If It Could Talk" and "Family Thanksgiving" by Gerald J.J. Johnson of Marshalltown, Iowa, and "Thanksgiving Verse" by Omaha native Myra Cohn Livingston (1926-1996). Print poems in a pretty type or have a calligrapher do the work. Frame separately for a series of wall hangings that becomes a reminder to be thankful all year.
See the next two slides for details on the tree and basket in our photo.
Plant a thankful tree
Invite dinner guests to write their blessings on paper ornaments. Sign and date each ornament to create an archive. Tie ornaments each year to fallen tree branches anchored with sand in a pitcher.
Gather donations
Invite guests to bring good-condition winter gear, along with books, canned goods and toiletries, to holiday gatherings. Collect the items in a basket by the entryway. Afterwards, cart the donations to a local charity. The most-needed goods in the Midwest region during the holidays, according to The Salvation Army: winter coats, children's clothing and new, unwrapped toys.
Listen to loved ones
The National Day of Listening, a day for recording family stories, is in late November. Jan Hieggelke of Chicago interviewed and videotaped her parents. "We learned quite a few interesting things about our family," Jan says. Visit the StoryCorps website for question suggestions and a how-to guide.
Do the turkey trot
Many Midwest cities host 5K runs or walks on Thanksgiving Day. It's a great way to burn some of those 3,000 calories (the average for a Thanks- giving meal) and support a charity.
Treat our troops
Contact the USO (United Service Organizations) to buy a care package for troops overseas. Each pack contains toiletries, snacks, books and more (like cooling scarves or hand warmers), along with a letter from you. uso.org
Surprise visitors
"I make up lots of baskets of food and small gifts and give them to everyone who knocks on my door, from the mailman to the UPS person," says Michigan native Sandy Berkowitz. "They are always surprised when they deliver me a package, and I give them one in return."
Reconnect with friends
It's fine to "Facebook" old friends or locate them on other social networking sites. But don't stop there. Call a friend to catch up, or schedule a coffee date.
Shop locally
Why not trade stressful mall shopping for browsing nearby neighborhood shops? You'll not only enjoy a more leisurely pace, but also support local businesses.
Some of our favorite spots to shop: Zionsville, an Indianapolis suburb, for one-of-a-kind gift shops, jewelry stores and an old-fashioned toy shop along a brick-paved Main Street. Kansas City Crossroads Art District in Missouri (left) for a diverse mix of art, antiques, home accessories and locally designed clothing. Short North Arts District in Columbus, Ohio, for fair-trade gifts, arty wares and hipster boutiques.
Let pets join the fun
Keep the cookies for yourself, but reward four-legged friends with healthy food bites. Pooches will love a small spoonful of real canned pumpkin--not pie filling because of its sugar content. Plain cooked turkey without the skin is a safe occasional treat for dogs or cats. Or click on Pet Munchies below for a dog-treat recipe. No pets? Make seed ornaments for the birds out of wooden shapes. Coat with peanut butter and sprinkle on birdseed.
Give back
Team up with others in your town to give back in a big way. "A 10-year tradition in our community is a free Thanksgiving meal on the Sunday prior to Thanksgiving," says Deb Brandlee of Bristol, South Dakota. Many local businesses, churches and groups provide and serve meals in the school auditorium.
Want to help others, but not sure where to start? Check out websites that list volunteer opportunities by ZIP code. You can start with the links below.


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Photo courtesy of Ron Dauphin
From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...A still warm beignet cloaked in confectioners' sugar must be included on the long list of pleasures that is New Orleans. To have beignets, in various shapes, with mugs of steaming coffee at the Cafe du Monde, or elsewhere in the French Quarter of the city, is a near perfect way to start a day or end a night of revelry. While I can't take you there, I can show you how to enjoy this treat in your own kitchen with a quiet cup of coffee and a table and floor relatively free of sticky powdered sugar. While I've tried, I can't find a way to keep the powdered sugar off your face. Everyone will know exactly what you've been doing. For the uninitiated, a beignet is a warm, crisp piece of fried dough that is topped with a heavy layer of confectioners' sugar. Food historians believe French colonists brought beignets to New Orleans in the 18th century. Some believe the Ursaline nuns brought the recipe with them from France, others believe the Acadians, who were expelled from Nova Scotia, introduced them to the people of New Orleans. No one is sure how the donuts got their name. The Celts had a word "bigne" that meant to raise. The French called donuts "beignet". We know for sure that beignets are made with yeast and while they are allowed to slowly rise, how they got their name is not at all important to those who love them. This recipe makes about 48 donuts. The good news is that the dough keeps well for about five days when it's refrigerated. That's important on several levels. Though beignets should be thought of as a dessert and can be eaten anytime, once fried and cool they quickly lose their appeal. Day old, they become bird-fodder or the base for bread pudding. You can cut this recipe in half to produce a less gargantuan quantity. These should always be served warm. If I haven't frighted you away and you actually make these, I know you'll love them. They are addictive. Here's the recipe for your downfall.
French Quarter Beignets...from the kitchen of One Perfect Bite, inspired by Paula Deen and others
1-1/2 cups lukewarm water
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2-1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 eggs, room temperature slightly beaten
1-1/4 teaspoons salt
1 cup evaporated milk
7 cups all-purpose or bread flour
1/4 cup shortening, melted and cooled to room temperature
Nonstick spray
Oil, for deep-frying
3 cups confectioners' sugar
1) Mix water, sugar, and yeast in a large bowl and let sit for 10 minutes.
2) In another bowl, beat eggs, salt and evaporated milk together. Whisk egg mixture into yeast mixture.
3) Mix 3 cups of flour into yeast mixture. Add shortening and continue to stir while adding remaining flour. Remove dough from the bowl, place onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth. Spray a large bowl with nonstick spray. Put dough into bowl and cover with plastic wrap or a towel. Let rise in a warm place for at least 2 hours.
4) Preheat oil in a deep-fryer to 350 degrees F.
5) Place confectioners' sugar in a paper or plastic bag. Set aside.
6) Roll dough out to about 1/4-inch thickness and cut into 2-inch squares. Deep-fry, flipping constantly, until golden color. Drain on paper towels for a few seconds then place in bag with confectioners' sugar and toss to thickly coat. Serve warm. Continue until all beignets have been fried and coated. Yield: 48 donuts.
You might also enjoy these recipes:
Open Mouths Laughing
Donuts for National Donut Day
Apple Fritters
This post is being linked to:
Wild Yeast - Yeast Spotting


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Electrically charged particles are relatively easy to accelerate using electric and magnetic fields. Neutral particles cannot be steered in the same way, which is a bit disappointing, since they are useful experimentally due to their much greater ability to pierce target materials. A promising technique uses very short pulses of intense laser light to accelerate neutral particles, though up until now it has only achieved low energy transfer.
A new experiment has achieved neutral particle energies on the order of a billion times greater than prior efforts. R. Rajeev and colleagues managed this by accelerating particles while they were charged, and then transferring in electrons to neutralize the charge. This method has the advantage of being compact, and therefore useful for applications such as nanolithography; however, the authors argued their approach can be generalized for other purposes.
Laser acceleration works by bombarding atoms with light pulses to strip electrons off, creating a plasma—a neutral gas of ions and electrons. Since the electrons are a lot less massive than the ions, you can tune the laser pulses in a precise way that separates them. The electrons shoot off, leaving behind a gas of positively charged atoms moving in coherent waves.
As we all know from elementary school physics, like charges repel. So any positively charged particle added to the plasma will experience acceleration from the plasma waves. Laser plasma accelerators are more compact than many other accelerator designs, including those used in big experiments like the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), although they haven't yet reached the same energies. Plasma acceleration (sans lasers) is also important in many astrophysical processes.
To adapt the method to neutral particles, the authors of the new study began with all the steps in the previous paragraph, using a plasma of argon atoms. However, the free electrons in the plasma were recombined with non-accelerated ions to create Rydberg atoms, in which electrons are only barely attached to the nucleus. Those loosely connected electrons were then transferred via collision to the rapidly moving ions from the accelerator, neutralizing them.
After applying powerful electric fields to separate out any residual ions, the researchers were left with a directed beam of highly energetic neutral atoms. By piggybacking on laser plasma acceleration, they achieved megaelectronvolt (MeV) energies, a billion times greater than previous efforts.
For comparison, these are equivalent to the energy of a large van de Graaf generator like that on display at the Boston Museum of Science. The LHC achieves energies a million times greater still—teraelectronvolt (TeV)—using magnetic fields. But, unlike these other experiments, the laser plasma accelerator was desktop-sized.
Neutral particles have greater penetrating power when striking a target for the same reason they are hard to accelerate: they are not affected by electromagnetic fields. That makes them useful in nanolithography: "printing" surfaces with patterns that have specific electronic properties. The researchers also proposed extending the technique to lighter atoms, specifically hydrogen. This could lead to advances in plasma physics, as well as application to more conventional particle colliders, providing new avenues for research.
Nature Physics, 2013. DOI: 10.1038/nphys2526 (About DOIs).


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WICHITA, Kan. (AP) A Kansas nonprofit group is joining other grassroots organizations in a campaign for what it calls comprehensive immigration reform.
Sunflower Community Action says the "Keeping Families Together" campaign will be launched during a community prayer vigil at 7 p.m. Friday at Newman University in Wichita.
The group says it plans to call on U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran to support an overhaul of the system and work on a path to citizenship that allows families to stay together. It's also asking Gov. Sam Brownback to oppose policies it considers hostile to immigrants.


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Rare 'mono mono' newborn twins doing well in Ohio
Rare twins born holding hands
Twin girls born with a rare condition in Ohio were breathing on their own and their mom said she and her husband were able to hold them on Mother's Day.
Sarah Thistlethwaite said babies Jillian and Jenna were removed from ventilators Sunday afternoon after they were able to breathe comfortably. She told The Associated Press that she and her husband Bill both held them for a while on Mother's Day.
"It's just hard to put into words how amazing it feels to know the girls are OK," she said. "It's great to know that they're doing so well, and being able to hold them."
The identical twin girls shared the same amniotic sac and placenta. Such births are called monoamniotic, or "mono mono," and doctors say they occur in about one of every 10,000 pregnancies.
They were born Friday at Akron General Medical Center, grasping each other's hands when doctors lifted them up for their parents to see after delivery.
Thistlethwaite told the Akron Beacon Journal that was "the best Mother's Day present ever."
"They're already best friends," said Thistlethwaite, 32. "I can't believe they were holding hands. That's amazing."
Jenna was born first at 4 pounds, 2 ounces and 17 inches, with Jillian following 48 seconds later at 3 pounds, 13 ounces and 17.5 inches.
They were moved temporarily to Akron Children's Hospital because they needed breathing assistance. Thistlethwaite expects to be released from Akron General on Tuesday, while the girls will remain in the hospital two to four weeks.
Dr. Melissa Mancuso helped deliver the twins, one of several amniotic pairs she has helped deliver in 11 years. She said the twins are at risk during pregnancy of entanglement of umbilical cords, which can cause death. Another woman at Akron General is expected to give birth later this week to monoamniotic twins.
Sarah and Bill Thistlethwaite, of Orrville, Ohio, have a son, Jaxon, whose first birthday was Jan. 27. That's the day they also found out she was carrying twins.
"All I could do was laugh," said Bill, 35.
They rushed to prepare their home for the twins, and Sarah was soon on bed rest.
A middle school math teacher, she went into the hospital on March 14.
"It's hard, it really is," she said of extended bed rest. "It was very mentally challenging knowing I have to sit here all day."
Besides television, books and "trashy gossip magazines," she viewed YouTube to learn how to crochet baby hats.
The girls were born at 33 weeks and two days. Mancuso said there were only minor issues during the pregnancy.
Sometimes the girls would kick the monitors off.
"I don't know what they're doing to each other," Sarah said jokingly of her "sweet girls."


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A new lawsuit targets Google for reading e-mails to target ads, according to TechCrunch. But the issue isn't that Google is reading e-mails from registered users; rather, the company is using e-mails sent from other services to Google users to target ads as well.
Google has gotten the side-eye a few times in the past for using e-mail content to serve context-based ads to its Gmail users. And for those Gmail users, Google's hide is covered: the terms of service explicitly state that users' e-mail content determines what ads they see.
Wayne Plimmer of British Columbia has filed a class-action lawsuit against Google for using his e-mails for ads. Plimmer is not a Gmail user, but his concern is that Google is reading and using his e-mails to serve ads to Gmail readers too. Being a non-Gmail user, he never agreed to the terms of service, so the legality of what Google is doing seems murky.
The lawsuit is on behalf of "all persons in the province of British Columbia who have sent e-mail to a Gmail account" and demands statutory damages for breach of copyright of $500 per e-mail that Google has used for ads. The lawsuit also seeks an injunction against Google's use of e-mails going forward. Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.


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Boston Brevet Series 600K: a Crew Member's Report
Bikes Not Bombs and refurbished the vintage machine himself. This was his first attempt at a 600K brevet. It was clear to me then that he would finish. He had to.
Man, that looks crazy hard! I was just looking through Cycle Oregon 2012 Weekend on Flickr and think I like the pace and camaraderie of that scene...more relaxed and more beer :) But kudos to those folks who challenge themselves with this unique endeavor...Wow.ReplyDelete
Not be all snotty and stuff, but it seems like a lot of fuss and trouble to go to for some bike rides. I gather that's the point? Process?ReplyDelete
Not any more trouble than people go through to run in marathons or drive cars in races, etc.
A meaningful event requires meaningful organization.
Not for everyone - me included - but perfectly rational set up.
We do it for the same reason we go through the trouble of coordinating meal times, preparing food, setting a table, and washing dishes even though we can eat without any of that fuss.Delete
I like parsimony especially when it comes to rides.That ethic and psychological configuration isn't for everyone.I understand. I hope that all the smart introverts out there can keep that in mind and venture.Delete
From one introvert to another responding to your last sentence I wholeheartedly say I agree and do.
That said, I fully respect what the more social humans are doing here and enjoyed LB's account.
Ironically, I think that randonneuring attracts mostly the type of persons you are describing: self-sufficient and introverted humans, being self-sufficient and introverted together(ish). It's one of those things that makes the whole thing so weird and unique.Delete
Some people go bowling. Some people collect ... beanie babies. Some people build hot rods, or boats. Some people walk the Adirondack Trail.
Some people won't understand doing any of those things. Takes all kinds.
Very nice write-up from the support perspective. Having both ridden and supported these types of rides, I can say it is much easier to RIDE, and much, much easier to stay awake if riding. Thanks so much for volunteering. It sounds as though we may see you riding one of these soon!ReplyDelete
Wow, so much detail. Excellent report.
Questions: what the heck is the guy in the white jersey wearing criss-crossed...don't tell me it's a tubie...
No picture of the gorgeous French bike!
Mostly congrats on volunteering for this. Being the supporter after having been supported is a good feeling and can be more difficult than riding in, say, charity events.
A tubular would be crossed over the back, not in front.Delete
I'm glad you asked. I was wondering the same thing and thought maybe I just didn't recognize something that's actually common since I don't myself wear much roadie gear.Delete
I had wondered too. It's a DIY sash made of reflective ribbon!
This is the French bike.
C'est jolie ça. Ribbon too.Delete
That bike floored and inspired me when I saw it in your Flickr feed. It's very well done.
And the sash is a good idea for this type of riding.
Very nice! I volunteered on this ride a few years ago, and working a brevet is as exhausting as riding one.
It has indeed been a quiet year. The Westfield (MA) 400k had four starters (and four finishers); the Westfield 600k had eight starters and six finishers.
Lovely account, it really gave a sense of the event. Congratulations to everyone who participated!ReplyDelete
Out of curiosity, how many women rode the brevet?ReplyDelete
Like the hard boiled, Raymond Chandler/Phillip Marlowe noir opening. No cigarette? Enjoyable, fun post as always not to mention instructive. Jim DuncanReplyDelete
To say all of this started with the innocent purchase of a loop frame... :)ReplyDelete
I know a little of the proud history of randonneuring, that it is as old an event or older than the grand tour races. But those are "stage" races. The riders all ride a set distance each day and sometimes take alternative transport to the start of the next stage. Much as one might do cycle-touring. Strangely, randonneuring, which seems more related to touring, is in fact a sort of ultra-marathon. And as they used to say of the Race Across America, it becomes a sleep deprivation derby. Regardless, obviously great and dedicated riders to be admired.ReplyDelete
can't believe you saw a moose, that is awesome!ReplyDelete
" feverish with exhaustion, his eyes aglow and his hands shaking. "
If golf is a good walk spoiled, this is surely the equivalent for a nice bike ride in the country.
Don't feel bad that you were tired. It is incredibly difficult to sit around and wait for hours on little sleep, more so than being active. I hope you give the brevets a try next year! I loved your Diringo Dynamo ride report!ReplyDelete
The progression of the photos from night to day to night to day gives an excellent feel for the event unfolding. The narrative is novel-quality at times. I know you can't write posts like this every day, but I am glad when you do. I hope you don't take that as a backhanded compliment, I just really enjoyed this and want to read more like it!
Oh yes, encourage her to poeticize a dangerous sport.
Velouria, I for one prefer your reviews and lighthearted posts. This is a blog, NOT a novel, and that is precisely why I like it.
Ha. I think it's pretty hard to confuse my posts with novels or literature of any kind, regardless of whether they are ride reports or product reviews.
Statistically speaking, I doubt that randonneuring qualifies as a dangerous sport. My riding for transportation on a daily basis is probably more risky.
I've only started riding brevets this year (147 Populaire, 200 and 300 km brevets) and I'm wondering if the amount of preparation and services offered are specific to the 600k or if similar provisions are made on shorter rides, too. Or is this a specific NE Randonneur thing? In the brevets I have ridden the only volunteer involved on the day of the event is our club president -- and he always is doing the ride himself, too. Controles are at gas stations or convenience stores along the route and that's it. I must say that I like this minimalist approach.ReplyDelete
My understanding is that it's organisation-specific. I hear that the NERs historically have always had pretty good support.
I have never done a supported ride, so cannot speak comparatively. But on the overnight ride to Maine I enjoyed the awareness that there was no support and we were on our own. I also think that this influences the dynamic of the group you're riding with.
There are a (very) few regions in the country that provide this level of support. Most other regions keep it simple - and it's certainly my preference to keep it simple, partly to eliminate the need for so many non-riding volunteers, and partly to prepare riders for being self-sufficient when they do other rides. Most regions have (non ride-staffed) convenience store controls where riders purchase something and either get the card signed by the clerk, or keep the receipt.
It's hard enough to get volunteers to man a control. And one can get the sense that it's a bit tedious to hang out for 12 hours in the hot sun waiting for riders to trickle thru. And while I'm sure all these riders appreciated the efforts and said thank you to all the volunteers, it really isn't necessary.
Manned controls are useful when there is a desolate stretch of road with no services, or maybe for a designated overnight stop, like one might have on a 600km or longer event.
If there is a convenience store, I see no need to set up a control right beside it, offering riders food and water outside while encouraging them to go in and use the toilets. This is not a criticism of V or the other volunteers who set up the controls where the organizer told them to. But I can certainly understand why the operator of a store might be annoyed.
The long running Berkshire series and the newer Vermont series are both run in a much lower key manner, with more minimally staffed controls. Having done many of the Berkshire rides over the years, I can say that Don Podolski has done an excellent job working with the local merchants who serve as controls and they are always quite happy to welcome us, sign our cards, serve us food and let us use their facilities. In some cases, he even provides vouchers (from the entry fee) that he has worked out in advance with the merchants.
It also keeps the DNF rate low, which is a RUSA goal. It's long been established that folks are less likely to drop out if they have to get home on their own!
Again, this is not a criticism of V and the other fine folks who sacrificed their weekend to do this.
Pamela, personally I agree with you on much of this. But I wonder whether knowing there is a history of support may encourage more people to ride who would be reluctant to otherwise? Maybe it's not even about the availability of food and supplies, but just the idea of someone you know waiting for you at controls. I don't know of course, just speculating. Hmm looks like I really need to experience one of these rides from the cyclist's perspective!Delete
Thanks for the explanations, Velouria and Pamela. The "food and drink" right next to a convenience store struck me as weird/rude, too.Delete
We bought things from the convenience store repeatedly. That was not an issue.Delete
The point about beginning riders feeling more of a need to be supported is true, in my experience.
But since they're beginners the rando format isn't all that appealing in that the nature of the event, self-sufficient long distance travel, is HARD.
The allure of sashes, lights and controls aside, most people who aren't obsessed with this kind of riding do your normal metric or standard century whose tables are overflowing with bounty. The only downside is high entrance fees. And lots of weaving, tired riders.
Wonderful story. Great photos as always.
Wouldn't want to kill the romantic buzz here but someone should make some remark about how dangerous this event could have been. Temperatures in the 90s is serious business. One hundred degrees on a climb is possible but not something to attempt lightly. I've done support work on RAAM qualifiers and seen smart riders make astonishingly bad decisions when dehydration begins. And that's when everyone has a crew handing them bottles and urging them to drink. Alone on a country road at night and needing many bottles every hour to keep your brain functioning is a sketchy place to be. If you're about to die and your brain is functional you bang on a farmhouse door but that can't be general practice.
Melinda Lyons gets maximum credit for knowing when to stop. I suspect this event came off without problems because the riders were all quite bright. Again, I've seen bright riders turn to mush for brains in a very short time. Extreme heat is dangerous.
Anybody who participated or finished is amazing. In that weather eleven is a good turnout.
The way I see it, it all comes down to personal responsibility. Even the best-supported ride in the world does not absolve us from it. Part of being an adult is knowing where our weaknesses and limits lie, knowing the difference between feeling challenged and being on the brink of harming ourselves. Heat is just one of many examples of stuff that can be very dangerous if we don't deal with it properly. I agree that being smart about these things is crucial to taking part in long brevets.Delete
Nobody enters a 600K brevet without a very good idea of what they're doing. Even if it's their first 600, they've already done a lot of brevet riding. Randonneurs are generally a very robust, mature and sensible lot who aren't at all reckless, in my experience. The sport as a whole has a very safe record compared to any other outdoor activity with which one might compare it.Delete
Great write up Velouria. If I follow your pictures and story correctly, the calm, collected, lead rider who appeared fresh as a cucumber after the event was riding a lightweight carbon fiber bike, narrow tires, no front bag, and no fenders. Do you think Ernie would have been a happier rider if his bike had been 10-15 pounds heavier, he rode much fatter tires, and he pushed a large handlebar bag into the wind all day? Just emphasizes again that there are lots of bikes you can ride very successfully on a brevet (including bikes that look nothing like those touted in Bicycle Quarterly).ReplyDelete
^Let the record show it was not me who wrote this.Delete
The more randonees I ride, the more I realize that type (especially weight) of the bike is probably the least important factor in randonneuring success. Conditioning, experience, sufficient food and drink (and a stomach trained to be unfussy), a comfortable position on the bike, the right clothing choices, well organized and tested accessories and baggage, and a smattering or determination and motivation are all much, much more important. Sometimes it seems all everyone on websites and forums wants to talk about is some mythical notion of the perfect randonneuring bike, but it really doesn't matter much.Delete
The lead rider was on a Specialized Roubaix CF bike. The next rider to finish was riding a 30lb steel bike with handlebar bag and bars higher than saddle level. And while the lead rider was motivated to go for a fast finishing time (I believe he was training for RAAM?), the second rider was just having fun and not aiming for anything in particular. That sort of thing matters. Also, if we're going to examine the lead rider's equipment, let me also note that 2 of the DNFs were riding lightweight CF bikes. Maybe they would have finished if they were riding steel because they would have been more comfortable? My point is that it's all speculative. The guy is riding CF and finishes first, so you suggest it's because of the bike. If the guy had been riding steel, you might have said it was *despite* bike. That just means it's pointless to attempt to use specific persons' performances as evidence.
My suspicion is that on these long tough rides, every cyclist needs to achieve a balance between hypothetical speed and comfort - so as to maximise their actual speed. For some this translates to riding steel even though it might hypothetically be slower. For others it might mean a relaxed geometry that is technically not as efficient. Who knows. Bottom line is that the goal is to achieve a balance that maximises that specific person's performance in the long run.
This is it. Some guys I've ridden with/used to race against simply do not feel pain, do not get uncomfortable. They just will themselves to what they want to do.
The old saw is comfort = speed, speed = comfort. Of course it's wrong, but...
I think those that ride steel would be pleasantly surprised by how fresh they'd feel after riding instead a Roubaix, though like I said feelings of fatigue are subjective.
The opposite, say someone who feels fatigue earlier/easier, who rides a Roubaix and trades for steel, may feel more fatigue.
Subjective questions about ride quality, aesthetics and "feel" notwithstanding.
Eh, it probably wouldn't matter. A similarly outfitted CF frame and steel frame wouldn't weight more than about 2-3 pounds differently, and that's pretty close to noise.
The extra stuff is what makes a bike heavy. Drop on a handlebar bag to carry goodies and a couple of extra layers; that's two pounds (5 if you're into the whole historical reenactment thing and buy/sew a canvas bag) plus however much your additional layers and food weigh. Fenders are a couple of pounds, too, and two or three full water bottles cheerfully add on the weight. Add in lighting and batteries or a generator hub and there go a couple more pounds, and I'm sure that the list goes on.
But a handlebar bag is nice for carrying food and additional clothing. Water bottles are good if you're not a fan of heat exhaustion or collapsing from dehydration. Lights are good if you want to be visible at night (plus they're the law) and fenders are amazingly useful if it's raining.
(And I'm not really sure how much extra wind resistance a handlebar bag actually is, given that the bicycle operator is usually at least as wide as the bag and churning through the air. I suspect that a handlebar bag would act as a bit of a fairing and reduce the wind resistance a little bit, particularly if it has a loaded front pocket that makes the leading edge less square.
My current summer read is a well written book on the history of Carthage. The author argues convincingly that at the start of the 3rd Punic War (which ended in Carthage's total destruction), Rome was so much more powerful than Carthage that even by the ethics of the time the war was completely unjustifiable.
BQ, which has in fact written positive articles about CF bikes, argues that properly designed and equipped steel bikes can be a viable alternative to many. As it happens, these bikes are available only in tiny quantities from cottage operations, many of whom are barely making a decent living.
CF bikes on the other hand are manufactured in huge quantities by publicly traded well off companies. CF bikes totally dominate the road racing portion of the industry.
Nevertheless, CF fans apparently feel so threatened by BQ they cannot let any opportunity to attack pass by.
Human nature I guess. It's not good enough to be the leader. All behind the leader must extend their unequivocal love, respect and honor and never question that the leader's ways are the best.
Thanks Velouria for putting things in perspective.
I agree...It's not about the bike, it's about the engine.ReplyDelete
Anyone interested might spend some time looking at the distance marks Sir Hubert Opperman set back in the 1930s. Riding his 1930s Raleigh Record Ace. If Sir Hubert entered a distance competition today on his old bicycle he would simply walk away from the field. In most cases if he had to ride his 1930s bike on 1930s roads while the moderns were privileged to ride modern roads he would still walk away from the competition.
For those riding at lower speeds and not competing all you need is a bike that works. A bike that continues to "work" for 600km is probably more than just an ordinary bike and pride of ownership and all that matter. Many things we obsess over do not.
"The guy is riding CF and finishes first, so you suggest it's because of the bike."
No, what I actually concluded was
"there are lots of bikes you can ride very successfully on a brevet"
One of the things I liked about your posts was it showed how much variety there is among the bikes and equipment choices of talented long distance riders. I think Jan Heine has picked the kind of bike he likes to ride, but so has Ernie. Their choices are very different, and I hope that encourages other riders to also find whatever works best for them.
Nice reading. Having done a 600 last year on tandem in Denmark, we could recognice a lot ourselves. We just like to ride about 330 km at most - above that it becomes to hard for us. This year we will try some 200 km and next year will be about our missing international 300 km ( there is a game about getting a 200, 300, 400 & 600 from 4 different countries: the international superrandonneur grade).ReplyDelete
Thank you for this post. As a casual recreational rider, I've wondered what radonneuring was really like; ironically, this account of your time as a volunteer is so thorough and detailed -- and gritty -- that I think I've got it now.ReplyDelete
Thank you for a great post. And thank you for volunteering! The sport needs volunteers to survive, and your sacrifice is greatly appreciated by all of us who like to ride these challenging events.
PS I always enjoy reading your blog. Thank you.
This was a very well written, detailed post and very helpful for me as a potential future Brevet rider. I now have a much better sense of what to expect, easing many uncertainties. Thanks!ReplyDelete
Hi...I am from India..I am a Randonneur...My name is Mithun...was reading through this write-up from a Volunteer's side...I have completed a 600k brevet and we all riders appreciate the Volunteers giving their time and enthusiasm for us ...without volunteers Randonneuring is difficult...many a times the volunteers enthusiasm lifts our spirits and makes us forget our sore backs and legs...also you meet people from different spheres of life...Randonneuring is an adventure...!!!ReplyDelete


text:
Bryan Kelly accused of trying to meet teen for sex after texting explicit messages
A Lake Worth man was arrested after allegedly trying to lure his teenage neighbor for sex by using explicit text messages.
Bryan Kelly, 33, faces charges of solicitation of a minor and traveling to meet a minor following Wednesday's arrest.
IMAGES: Can You Identify These Men Wanted For Child Sex Crimes?
Kelly sent text messages to a phone number he thought belonged to his 14-year-old neighbor, not knowing she shared the phone with her mother, according to the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.
The arrest report indicated that once the mother contacted PBSO on Monday, agents set up a sting Wednesday in which an officer texted from another number, claiming to be the 14-year-old girl. Once that conversation began, Kelly allegedly sent a series of text messages that included questions like "Would you play with my ****?" and "Are you OK that I'm 33?"
According to the arrest report, Kelly also texted the girl about "playing with your *****" and told her not to wear a bra or panties, then asked "can we **** each other?"
Kelly and the agent posing as the teen agreed to meet, but when he showed up, he was arrested.
Kelly, who according to the report is 6 foot 4 and 500 pounds, had told the girl not to tell her mom, the report said.
He remains behind bars on $200,000 bond.


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text: Back Pulmonary Function Tests (PFTs, Pulmonary Function Studies, Lung Function Studies/Tests, Airflow Assessment) Procedure overview What are pulmonary function tests? Pulmonary function tests (PFTs) are noninvasive diagnostic tests that provide measurable feedback about the function of the lungs. By assessing lung volumes, capacities, rates of flow, and gas exchange, PFTs provide information that, when evaluated by your doctor, can help diagnosis certain lung disorders. A normally-functioning pulmonary system operates on many different levels to ensure adequate balance. One of the primary functions of the pulmonary system is ventilation, the movement of air into and out of the lungs. Some medical conditions may interfere with ventilation. These conditions may lead to chronic lung disease. Conditions that interfere with normal ventilation are categorized as restrictive or obstructive. An obstructive condition occurs when air has difficulty flowing out of the lungs due to resistance, causing a decreased flow of air. A restrictive condition occurs when the chest muscles are unable to expand adequately, creating a disruption in air flow. Pulmonary function tests may be indicated to determine the presence, location, cause, and characteristics of the problem, and to guide treatment. Pulmonary function tests is an inclusive term that refers to several different procedures that measure lung function in different ways. Some of the more common values that may be measured during pulmonary function testing include: Tidal volume (VT). This is the amount of air inhaled or exhaled during normal breathing. Minute volume (MV). This is the total amount of air exhaled per minute. Vital capacity (VC). This is the total volume of air that can be exhaled after maximum inspiration. Functional residual capacity (FRC). This is the amount of air remaining in lungs after normal expiration. Total lung capacity. This is the total volume of lungs when maximally inflated. Forced vital capacity (FVC). This is the amount of air exhaled forcefully and quickly after maximum inspiration. Forced expiratory volume (FEV). This is the volume of air expired during the first, second, and third seconds of the FVC test. Forced expiratory flow (FEF). This is the average rate of flow during the middle half of the FVC test. Peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR). This is the maximum volume during forced expiration. Some PFTs involve the use of a spirometer. Click to Enlarge The spirometer is an instrument that measures the amount of air breathed in and/or out and how quickly the air is inhaled and expelled from the lungs while breathing through a mouthpiece. The measurements are recorded on a device called a spirograph. Other test results are derived from calculations based on the results of certain spirometry procedures. In addition to measuring the amount and rate of air inhaled and exhaled, these tests can also indicate how well oxygen and carbon dioxide are being exchanged in the alveoli. Some PFTs, such as thoracic gas volume or other lung volume measurements, may be determined by plethysmography. During plethysmography, a person sits or stands inside an air-tight box that resembles a short, square telephone booth to perform the tests. The normal values for PFTs vary from person to person. The amount of air inhaled and exhaled in your test results are compared to the expected average in someone of the same age, height, sex, and race. In addition, results are compared to your previous test results, if previous testing has been done. If you have abnormal PFT measurements or if your results are different from previous tests, you may be referred for other diagnostic tests to establish a medical diagnosis. Anatomy of the respiratory system Respiratory System - Click to Enlarge The respiratory system is made up of the organs involved in the exchange of gases, and consists of the: Nose Pharynx Larynx Trachea Bronchi Lungs The upper respiratory tract includes the: Nose Nasal cavity Ethmoidal air cells Frontal sinuses Maxillary sinus Larynx Trachea The lower respiratory tract includes the lungs, bronchi, and alveoli. What are the functions of the lungs? The lungs take in oxygen, which cells need to live and carry out their normal functions. The lungs also get rid of carbon dioxide, a waste product of the body's cells. The lungs are a pair of cone-shaped organs made up of spongy, pinkish-gray tissue. They take up most of the space in the chest, or the thorax (the part of the body between the base of the neck and diaphragm). The lungs are enveloped in a membrane called the pleura. The lungs are separated from each other by the mediastinum, an area that contains the following: The heart and its large vessels Trachea (windpipe) Esophagus Thymus Lymph nodes The right lung has three sections called lobes. The left lung has two lobes. When you breathe, the air enters the body through the nose or the mouth. It then travels down the throat through the larynx (voice box) and trachea (windpipe) and goes into the lungs through tubes called mainstem bronchi. One mainstem bronchus leads to the right lung and one to the left lung. In the lungs, the mainstem bronchi divide into smaller bronchi and then into even smaller tubes called bronchioles. Bronchioles end in tiny air sacs called alveoli. Reasons for the procedure There are many different reasons why PFTs may be ordered. They are sometimes ordered in healthy individuals as part of a routine physical. In others, the tests may be ordered when a specific illness is suspected. Some of the disorders that may be detected with PFTs include, but are not limited to, the following: Allergies. An acquired, abnormal immune response to one or more substances that can cause a broad range of inflammatory reactions. Chronic lung conditions. Conditions, such as asthma, bronchiectasis, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis, that can be treated but not cured. Asbestosis. A lung disease caused by the inhalation of asbestos fibers. Chest trauma. Trauma to the chest, such as fractured ribs or a recent surgical procedure, can restrict an individual's ability to breathe adequately. Restrictive airway conditions. Impaired lung expansion as a result of conditions, such as scoliosis, pulmonary tumors, or inflammation or scarring of the chest wall. Respiratory infections Sarcoidosis. A condition that causes small, fleshy swellings in the tissue around the organs, usually in the liver, lungs, and spleen. Scleroderma. A disease of the body's connective tissue that causes thickening and hardening of the skin. PFTs may be used to assess the lung function of patients prior to surgery or other invasive procedures in patients who have current lung and/or heart problems, who are smokers, or who have other conditions that might be affected by surgery or other procedures. Another use of PFTs is the evaluation of treatment for conditions such as asthma, emphysema, and other chronic lung problems. There may be other reasons for your doctor to recommend pulmonary function tests. Risks of the procedure Because pulmonary function testing is a noninvasive procedure, it is safe for most individuals. It is quick and the individual needs to be able to follow clear, simple directions. Complications of PFTs may include: Faintness or light-headedness due to hyperventilation Asthmatic episode precipitated by deep inhalation exercises Situations in which PFTs may be contraindicated include, but are not limited to, the following: Recent eye surgery, because of increased pressure inside the eyes during the procedure Recent abdominal or chest surgery, because of potential interference with the ability to take deep breaths and stress on the surgical site Chest pain, recent heart attack, or unstable cardiovascular status Thoracic, abdominal, or cerebral aneurysm Active tuberculosis or acute respiratory infection, such as a cold or the flu There may be other risks depending on your specific medical condition. Be sure to discuss any concerns with your doctor prior to the procedure. Certain factors or conditions may interfere with the accuracy of PFTs. These factors may include, but are not limited to, the following: Medications such as bronchodilators (open the airways) or pain medications (may affect the ability to perform the tests) Pregnancy or gastric distention (may affect the ability to take in deep breaths) Fatigue or other conditions that affect the ability to perform the tests Before the procedure Your doctor will explain the procedure to you and offer you the opportunity to ask any questions that you might have about the procedure. Generally, no prior preparation, such as fasting, fluid restriction, or sedation is required. However, you may be asked to avoid eating a heavy meal before the test. If you are pregnant or suspect that you may be pregnant, you should notify your doctor. Notify your doctor of all medications (prescription and over-the-counter) and herbal supplements that you are taking. If you are a smoker, you will usually be asked to refrain from smoking for a period of time before the test. Your height and weight will be recorded so that your results can be accurately calculated. Based on your medical condition, your doctor may request other specific preparation. During the procedure Pulmonary function tests may be done on an outpatient basis or as part of your stay in the hospital. Procedures may vary depending on your condition and your and your doctor's practices. Generally, PFTs follow this process: You will be asked to loosen tight clothing, jewelry, or other objects that may interfere with the procedure If you wear dentures, you will be asked to wear them during the procedure. You will be asked to empty your bladder before the procedure to optimize comfort. You will sit in a chair or stand for the procedure. You will be given a soft nose clip to wear during the procedure so that all of your breaths will go through your mouth, rather than your nose. You will be given a sterile mouthpiece that will be attached to the spirometer. With your mouth forming a tight seal around the mouthpiece, you will be instructed to perform various breathing maneuvers. The maneuvers will be done by inhaling and exhaling. Depending on what measurements are ordered, you may be asked to repeat the maneuvers several times before the test is completed. You may be given a bronchodilator after certain tests have been performed. These tests will be repeated several minutes later after the bronchodilator has taken effect. You will be monitored carefully during the procedure for faintness, dizziness, difficulty breathing, or any other problems. After the procedure Generally, there is no special type of care following PFTs. You may resume your usual diet, medications, and activities unless your doctor advises you otherwise. If you have a history of respiratory problems, you may be tired after the procedure. You will be given the opportunity to rest afterwards. Your doctor may give you additional or alternate instructions after the procedure depending upon your particular situation. Online resources The content provided here is for informational purposes only, and was not designed to diagnose or treat a health problem or disease, or replace the professional medical advice you receive from your doctor. Please consult your health care provider with any questions or concerns you may have regarding your condition. This page contains links to other websites with information about this procedure and related health conditions. We hope you find these sites helpful, but please remember we do not control or endorse the information presented on these websites, nor do these sites endorse the information contained here. American Lung Association National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Library of Medicine


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Looming across-the-board budget cuts present the U.S. military with the most significant readiness crisis in more than a decade and quick action is needed to avoid the spending reductions, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned during testimony Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
If the billions of dollars in cuts are allowed to stand, Panetta said, he would have to throw the country's national defense strategy "out the window,"and the United States would no longer be a first-rate power. "This will badly damage our national defense and compromise our ability to respond to crises in a dangerous world," Panetta said.
Panetta, however, assured lawmakers the Defense Department would take the steps necessary to deal with possible threats in the Persian Gulf region after he approved the Navy's request to halve its aircraft carrier presence in the area.
Anticipating the Defense Department will have less money to spend, Panetta said the Pentagon has already put in place a freeze on hiring and cut back on maintenance at bases and facilities. Those moves are reversible, he said, as long as Congress acts quickly to head off the cuts, known as sequestration, and approves a 2013 military budget.
The potential for sequestration to kick in on March 1 is the result of Congress'failure to trim the deficit by $1.2 trillion over a decade. The Pentagon faces a $42.7 billion budget cut in the seven months starting in March and ending in September. The reductions through sequestration would be in addition to a $487 billion cut in defense spending over the next ten years mandated by the Budget Control Act passed in 2011.
Panetta said that the department understood that it needed to do its part to help deal with the federal deficit and has been working to adjust its plans to deal with the lower spending levels. But adding sequestration on top of that creates an untenable situation, he said.
As "time went on and the erosion that would take place in our capabilities,instead of being a first-rate power in the world, we'd turn into a second-rate power," Panetta told the committee. "That would be the result of sequester."
Panetta, who is retiring soon from his post, has been leading a vocal campaign to stop sequestration because it would leave the military "hollow,"meaning the armed forces would look good on paper but would lack the training and equipment they need to handle their missions.
As part of that campaign, the Defense Department has been providing greater details on the impact of the cuts. The department on Wednesday said it is cutting its aircraft carrier presence in the Persian Gulf region from two carriers to one, a move that represents one of the most significant effects of sequestration.
The U.S. has maintained two aircraft carrier groups in the Gulf for much of the last two years.
The deployments of the USS Harry S Truman and the USS Gettysburg, a guided-missile cruiser, are being delayed as part of the Navy's plan to deal with the budget uncertainty.
Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates decided in 2010 to keep two carrier groups in the Gulf region as tensions with Iran escalated. Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway through which roughly a fifth of the world's oil supply passes, in retaliation for increased Western-led sanctions.
"We're going to do everything we can to make sure that we are prepared to deal with the threat from Iran," Panetta said. "We will have one carrier there and we will deploy other forces there so that we can hopefully fill the gap."
Congress has not approved a defense budget for the 2013 fiscal year. Lawmakers have instead been passing bills called continuing resolutions to keep spending levels at the same rate as last year. That means the Pentagon is operating on less money than it planned for, and that compounds the problem, Panetta said.
"We have got to end the cloud of budget uncertainty that hangs over the Department of Defense and the entire U.S. government," Panetta said.
A group of Republican lawmakers from House and Senate have offered a plan to cut the federal workforce and use the savings to replace the cuts to the Pentagon and to domestic programs, which also are affected by the sequester. Similar legislation offered last year did not pass.
Each of the military branches have described in detailed memos to Congress widespread civilian furloughs, layoffs and hiring freezes that will hit workers all around the country.
Overall, the Pentagon will furlough 800,000 civilian workers for 22 days, spread across more than five months, and will lay off as many as 46,000 temporary and contract employees, according to the correspondence.
The Navy said it will cease deployments to South America and the Caribbean and limit deployments to Europe. The Air Force warned that it would cut operations at various missile defense radar sites from 24 hours to eight hours. The Army said it would cancel training center rotations for four brigades and cancel repairs for thousands of vehicles, radios and weapons.
There is also concern that the readiness levels of the U.S. nuclear force could be degraded. The Air Force general responsible for maintaining the nation's fleet of nuclear-capable bombers said Wednesday that the possibility of sequestration and smaller defense budgets has lead his command to make a 10 percent cut in flying hours for the B-52 bomber, a long-range aircraft that has been in operation since the 1950s.
"At the wing and the squadron level, they can probably manage that for a little while, and then we'll have to see what the impact of that is," said Lt. Gen. James Kowalski, commander of the Global Strike Command at Barksdale Air Force Base, La.
The B-52, which is the bomber fleet's workhorse, is already flying 20 percent fewer training missions than it did in 2001, according to Kowalski.
Kowalski also said discussions among senior national security officials are under way to determine whether missions handled by the nation's nuclear forces should get priority budget status in the event of sequestration. Global Strike Command also is responsible for B-2 stealth bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles.


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An elderly woman has been beheaded in broad daylight in a horrific attack in a suburban back garden.
Palmira Silva, (82), who is believed to be of Italian descent, was found dead outside a house in Edmonton, north London.
Tributes were paid to Ms Silva, who is thought to have worked in a nearby cafe, as a 25-year-old man held in connection with the killing remained under police guard in hospital.
The man was Tasered and arrested on suspicion of murder at the scene in Nightingale Road by armed officers, some of whom were injured in a struggle.
Witnesses described seeing a man dressed in black, waving a machete-like weapon as he wandered screaming and shouting through private gardens.
A neighbour who knew Ms Silva said the widow was "such a sweet lady" who had lived in the house for more than 25 years and still went to work every day.
The neighbour, who did not want to be named, said she was "devastated" by what had happened.
She said: "I was speaking to her yesterday. She was weeding in the front garden, she loved her gardening.
"She was sitting having a rest.
"I said 'You've been doing such hard work, your flowers are beautiful'. She said 'I know'.
"I think maybe today she was in the back garden.
"She was such a sweet lady. She was slow getting around but she still went to work. I think really after her husband died that's what kept her going."
The house in the busy street where Ms Silva's body was found was the scene of a major police operation.
Scotland Yard revealed that its officers distracted the man after he was seen going through back gardens in Nightingale Road to prevent him attacking anyone else while they evacuated people from nearby homes.
Officers from the Met's homicide and major crime command are also investigating an attempted attack on two people at another house in the road before Ms Silva was killed.
A spokesman said: "At this stage we believe they were both able to get out of the house without injury."
Neighbours described the terrifying scene as events unfolded in the north London suburb shortly after 1pm.
Restaurant worker Freda Odame, 30, said she was about to go to sleep after working a night shift when she heard a commotion.
She said: "I heard shouting and banging and I opened my curtains and saw a guy holding a knife in a back garden a few doors along.
"He was screaming, I couldn't make out the words. I could see he seemed aggressive. He looked a bit frantic."
She said the man was waving a weapon around towards the floor.
"It was like he was looking for something on the floor," she said.
"I was shaking and I just shut the curtains. I was worried he might see me.
"Then the police knocked on the door and said 'You've got to get out, you've got to get out'."
Ahmed Yusuf, 19, said: "At first there were two police cars, then all of a sudden there were 20.
"The police said to drop everything. I said 'What's going on?' and they said there's a guy jumping over gardens."
Another local resident described seeing a man brandishing a machete and shouting about cats.
The witness, who did not want to be named, said he also saw a headless cat as he watched the drama from his window.
The man said: "There was a scream so I went to the windows and saw a guy with a machete with blood dripping from it.
"We saw a cat on the floor without a head.
"He was standing in the garden and walking up and down shouting about cats. I don't know why he was looking for a cat."
The knifeman then appeared in the witness's garden and began swiping at plants, he said.
He went on: "He started cutting roses. We were just trying to call the police. You can't think anything in that situation.
"He asked our neighbour if he had seen a cat and the neighbour was afraid and walked inside."
At one point the man climbed on top of a garage, he said.
"He appeared in the alleyway and I saw him raising the machete," the man said.
"Then he came to a front door and nobody answered so he started to bash the windows."
Metropolitan Police commander Simon Letchford said police were trying to establish the attacker's motive, but there are no signs of a link to terrorism.
He said officers smashed house windows to get people out after the man had been "cornered" in a house.
He said: "They (the officers) did everything they could to evacuate people from those premises and clearly they were aware of what had happened and they put themselves in extreme danger to protect the public, to ensure that his behaviour was stopped as soon as it possibly could be."
He confirmed that police were called to the scene by initial reports of a man attacking an animal, a cat or a dog, at 1.07pm.
A weapon was recovered at the scene but he did not reveal what it was, or the nature of Ms Silva's injuries.


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Cheesecake is undoubtedly an American obsession, both loved and hated for its creamy, high-fat, sugary goodness. But for Angela Galan of Guttenberg, it was a career choice.
In the '80s, inspired by her love of the dessert, she began to bake. Her dedication eventually led her beyond the realm of the cheesecake and on to every known confection, and three years ago, her pomegranate meringue pie earned her a place as one of five pie contest semifinalists out of over 100 contestants on the Martha Stewart Show.
"It would have never happened if I hadn't shown up late," she said. Galan had traveled to the Manhattan studio to watch the show as a guest, but showed up late and missed the first taping. The audience coordinator was kind enough to let her into the second taping.
"I was so thankful, later that week I brought her a cheesecake," Galan explained.
The office was so impressed, they invited her to compete in the pie contest.
Galan and her pastry chef daughter Stephanie, who graduated from the internationally renowned French Culinary Institute, had been baking for years from their Guttenberg home. By virtue of the goodness of their creations and her success on the Martha Stewart Show, the operation eventually grew beyond the capacity of their own kitchen.
On Sept. 30, the mother-daughter team opened up Marzano's Bake Shop in West New York. They don't have counter service, and spend all hours in their new space baking and meeting with people for order consultations.
"We had refrigerators everywhere, and two stoves [in the house]," Galan explained. "We were baking so much we desperately needed more space."
"We were baking so much we desperately needed more space." – Angela Galan
Supply, demand, and designer pastry
Television has aided in the popularity of custom-made novelty cakes, cupcakes, and cookies. The Galans have definitely seen a rise in demand because of the trend.
As Hoboken's own "Cake Boss" Buddy Valastro and Philadelphia's "Ace of Cakes" Duff Goldman have taken classic batter and fondant to new sculptural and architectural levels, customers' requests have become more and more lavish.
To keep up with the business of cake making, a baker's skills must extend beyond the traditional and into the downright artistic. Galan filled an order for a "Yo Gabba Gabba" birthday cake based on the popular children's television show.
The cake itself was a spectacle of colors, and she had to sculpt all of the characters with fondant (a plyable, firm alternative to icing that could be likened to edible modeling clay) and gum paste. The figurines took several days to complete, and they had to dry in time.
A new trend, the Galans explained, is "designer" cakes – literally. Customers regularly request cakes in the pattern of Louis Vuitton and Betsy Johnson, or in the shape of the designers' shoes and handbags. They create a stencil and, in the case of Louis, dab on edible gold dust to create the trademark logo.
One customer ordered 50 cupcakes, each topped with a separate designer handbag.
"Cupcakes can be super time consuming," Stephanie said. "We had to make 50 little bags as opposed to one larger one. It's a lot of work, but people love it."
What it takes to run a bake shop
Therein lies the scope of a bake shop's work, which entails long hours and a rigid, super-organized schedule. One might be surprised to hear that on average, the shop completes four to five orders per week. Depending on how complicated each order is, they may have to take on fewer projects.
The duo works Wednesday through Saturday nonstop. They try to have everything baked off by Thursday afternoon, which includes only the cake and filling. From then until Friday, they put it all together and apply the fondant and the figurines, or whatever embellishment a customer wants.
Saturday is delivery day.
Sometimes a cake comes with individual cupcakes or cookies that hosts give out as party favors. One time a customer requested small boxes tied with ribbon that contained three different flavored macaroons each. There were 350 guests.
"That, plus the three other cakes in the same week, meant we didn't sleep for two days," Galan recalled.
One of the most complicated and expensive cakes the Galans have created was a $750 wedding cake that served 200 people. It had complex piping (designs applied to the cake with small icing tips) and bore real orchids.
"That was an exception, mostly because of the orchids," Stephanie said. "Our cakes' prices depend on the size and the work involved, but we understand the financial demands our customers must meet, and we try to price accordingly."
One thing is constant, and that is the women love what they do, and are excited to have the opportunity to do it in their brand new space.
For more information on Marzano's, visit www.marzanosbakeshop.com or call (201) 758-8999. They also have an Instagram account with their confections displayed called Angie Bakes.
Gennarose Pope may be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com


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View parents Singles in Seven Corners
Parents Dating in Seven Corners, VA
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Double Charm
Stack of two yellow and white Gold chains with VVS clarity Diamonds
Bracelets –material Earrings –material also we will add dimensions for each of the pendant in mm Engagement & wedding – material and size (for rings) Kids – material Necklace – material Pendant – material also we will add dimensions for each of the pendant in mm Rings - material and size (for rings)
Additional information
|Brand watch
George Hakim
|By Categories
White & Rose Gold
|Gemstone weight
0.96 carats
|Gross Weight
5.80 g
If you're not entirely satisfied with your purchase, we're here to help
- Items shipped from Al Fardan Jewellery can be returned within 14 days of receipt of shipment in most cases.
- Some products may have different policies or requirements associated with them.
- Free return within UAE. For items shipped outside UAE buyer shall send item via trackable shipping method.
- All product packaging (boxes, manuals, warranty cards, etc.) and certificates of authenticity, grading, and appraisal must be in good condition and returned with the item. Any items returned without original documentation will be rejected.
- Items that have been resized, damaged, or otherwise altered after delivery won't be accepted for return.
- Once the item is returned and checked, the equivalent amount to the item's price will be returned as a store credit, i.e., voucher with an unlimited expiration date that can be spent on our website.
Shipment processing time
- All orders are processed within 2-3 business days. Orders are not shipped or delivered on weekends or holidays.
- If we are experiencing a high volume of orders, shipments may be delayed by a few days. Please allow additional days in transit for delivery. If there will be a significant delay in shipment of your order, we will contact you via email or telephone.
Shipping rates & delivery estimates
- Delivery in the UAE is free of charge.
- After order is processed our team will get in touch with you to agree on time of delivery.
- You may expect delivery within same day or 3 working days.
- Items to be delivered only door to door and handover to the buyer who's name and contact details mentioned in order form.


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August 18th, 2011
Modern life rough on men
Didn't men use to be more masculine? They were more ready to fight back, right? They walked with more swagger, and just did more things their way.
Researchers can't measure swagger – but they can measure testosterone, the male sex hormone most responsible for masculine behaviors – and studies show that testosterone levels in men have been on the decline for decades.
Two major studies have confirmed the phenomenon, one in U.S. men and another in Danish men. In the U.S. study, the total testosterone levels measured in men's blood dropped approximately 22% between 1987 and 2004.
Of course testosterone levels drop as men get older, but what makes the study shocking is that men today actually have less testosterone than men used to have at the same age.
The challenges to men's health may not be limited to testosterone levels. The amount of sperm in ejaculated semen may be falling too.
A 1992 Danish analysis of sperm quality from other studies concluded that sperm quality has been dropping for decades, and a 1997 reanalysis using different mathematical modeling confirmed the decline, estimating a drop in sperm levels of about 1.5% per year in the United States.
But researchers have been gathering new data since 1996, this time using semen from Danish 18-year olds testing for military service.
That data shows no such decline at all. Oddly, the results have not been published in a peer-reviewed journal, but were instead released early to the Danish government, which then published them online.
If there's strong evidence that testosterone is dropping, and the jury is still out on the decline of sperm, what other health challenges are men facing?
Male sex organ malformations are certainly among them. Hypospadias for example, a condition in which the man's urethra opens somewhere before the tip of the penis, nearly doubled in prevalence from 1970 to 1993 according to national Birth Defects Monitoring Program.
Another study found that the percentage of babies in neonatal intensive care units with hypospadias jumped from just .4% in 1987 to 4% in 2000.
Boys also suffer higher rates of once-rare disorders like ADHD and autism. A comprehensive study of South Korean schoolchildren published earlier this year estimates 3.74% of all boys in that country have some form of autism, compared to 1.74% of girls.
To top it all off: there's evidence that the percentage of babies born male is declining.
In the general population the difference is slight, but statistically relevant. One group of epidemiologists found that in the United States, the percentage of Caucasian babies born male decreased from 51.43% in 1970 to 51.22% in 2002. That's equivalent to about 21 fewer men per 10,000 births.
In some populations, the drop is far more significant.
A group of Native Americans – the Chippewas of Aamjiwnaang – live on a reserve surrounded by large industrial chemical plants in Ontario, Canada. The percentage of male births there dropped from a normal rate of 55.1% in the years 1989-1993 to just 34.8% in the years 1999-2003.
Why is this happening?
Many researchers cited here mention changes in our environment, like an increase in the number of chemicals we're exposed to in the womb, and throughout life.
Precisely how it all happens though is somewhat outside our scientific understanding, and of course something like testosterone levels affects each man very differently.
"Two men of the same age may have exactly the same testosterone level but feel very different physically, emotionally, and sexually," says Ian Kerner, CNN's sex counselor. "I try to work with men to re-define sex in a way that works with their situation."
What is clear is that for whatever reason – men are taking some big biological punches from modern life.
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About this blog
Get a behind-the-scenes look at the latest stories from CNN Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen and the CNN Medical Unit producers. They'll share news and views on health and medical trends - info that will help you take better care of yourself and the people you love.


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Have you been thinking about adding a pet to your family? Perhaps you don't have the space for a dog or maybe someone in your household is allergic to cats. The Seattle Animal Shelter has the perfect solution: start small.
Come on down to the shelter on Saturday, April 18, for Cool City Pets, an adoption event highlighting small animals looking for their forever homes. From 1-3 p.m., potential adopters can meet the many small animals available for adoption from the shelter, including: rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, rats, birds, reptiles, ferrets, mice and more.
Volunteer small-animal specialists will be on hand to help adopters find the right pet for them. They provide information about each animal's characteristics and needs, demonstrate basic care and handling skills, and answer questions. The Seattle Animal Shelter features Cool City Pets the third Saturday of every month.
All ages are welcome, but children must be accompanied by an adult. Animals may be adopted by adults only. Adopters must be prepared to provide proper housing, food, water, toys and other materials necessary for the care and good health of the animal. The adoption fee for small animals ranges from $15-$40.
The Seattle Animal Shelter is located at 2061 15th Ave. W, about a mile south of the Ballard Bridge. If you would like more information or directions, please call 206-386-7387 (PETS) or visit the shelter's website at http://www.seattleanimalshelter.org.
The shelter is open Tuesday through Sunday, noon-6 p.m. for adoptions and for licensing.
The Seattle Animal Shelter reserves the right to approve or deny any animal adoptions and limits the number of small animal adoptions to no more than three per household.


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Hundreds of living, dead pythons found in home
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A California schoolteacher was arrested Wednesday after hundreds of living and dead pythons in plastic bins were found stacked floor to ceiling inside his stench-filled home in suburban Orange County.
As investigators wearing respirator masks carried the reptiles out of the house and stacked them in the driveway, reporters and passers-by gagged at the smell. Some held their noses or walked away from the five-bedroom home to get a breath of air.
"The smell alone — I feel like I need to take a shower for a week," said police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna. "They're pretty much in all the bedrooms — everywhere."
Officers said they found more than 400 snakes — at least 220 of them dead — as well as numerous mice and rats, in the Santa Ana home of William Buchman after neighbors complained about the smell. He was arrested for investigation of neglect in the care of animals, Bertagna said.
Buchman, 53, was still in custody Wednesday afternoon, Bertagna said. The Newport-Mesa Unified School District, where he works, declined comment, saying it was a police matter.
Buchman has not yet had a court appearance or been formally charged and it wasn't clear if he had an attorney.
Authorities said he lived alone, and neighbors said his mother, who had lived with him, had passed away within the past few years.
Sondra Berg, the supervisor for the Santa Ana Police Department's Animal Services Division, said four bedrooms in the home were stacked from floor to ceiling and wall to wall with plastic bins on wooden and metal racks. The bins were packed so tightly, Berg said, that they didn't require lids because there was no room for the snakes to slither out.
Each snake was catalogued by name and type, and Berg said Buchman told authorities he was involved in a snake-breeding enterprise.
"House of Horrors: That's the best way to describe it," Berg said of the house. "I mean there's so many dead snakes ... ranging from dead for months to just dead. There's an infestation of rats and mice all over the house. There are rats and mice in plastic storage tubs that are actually cannibalizing each other."
Some of the snakes were little more than skeletons. Others, only recently dead, were covered with flies and maggots.
Next-door neighbor Forest Long Sr. said he has known Buchman for years, adding the men had once been friendly, getting together to watch sports on television.
But he noticed a change in his neighbor about a year ago, he said, adding Buchman stopped coming around and, when he did, he appeared to have gained a good deal of weight.
"Something changed in Bill, yes it did," he said. "Something triggered it because I couldn't even think that that was going on."
The odor from the house, meanwhile, became unbearable about five months ago.
"It got so bad as to where my wife would throw up," Long said. "She'd get out of the car and run into the house."
He said neighbors speculated that there must be a dead body inside.
Bertagna said animal control authorities had tried to work with Buchman for several months after neighbors reported the smell. He said they sought a warrant after they were not allowed inside the home.
Berg said Buchman told authorities he was involved in a type of snake breeding called "morphing," in which owners try to breed different color patterns in the reptiles.
It was a very popular and lucrative enterprise 10 years ago but has declined, she said.
"There was a lot of fast money in it, but now the bottom pretty much fell out of the market because there are so many of these snakes out there," she said.
At one time, Berg said, a good specimen of the type authorities found could have fetched $5,000. Today it would be worth only about $200.


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From Ars Technica.
More than 400 years before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, Greek playwright Euripides wrote in his play Bellerophon, "Doth some one say that there be gods above? There are not; no, there are not. Let no fool, led by the old false fable, thus deceive you."
Euripides was not an atheist and only used the word "fool" to provoke his audience. But, if you look at the studies conducted over the past century, you will find that those with religious beliefs will, on the whole, score lower on tests of intelligence. That is the conclusion of psychologists Miron Zuckerman and Jordan Silberman of the University of Rochester and Judith Hall of Northeastern University who have published a meta-analysis in Personality and Social Psychology Review.
This is the first systematic meta-analysis of 63 studies conducted between 1928 and 2012. In such an analysis, the authors look at each study's sample size, quality of data collection, and analysis methods and then account for biases that may have inadvertently crept into the work. This data is next refracted through the prism of statistical theory to draw an overarching conclusion of what scholars in this field find. "Our conclusion," as Zuckerman puts it, "is not new."
"If you count the number of studies which find a positive correlation against those that find a negative correlation, you can draw the same conclusion because most studies find a negative correlation," added Zuckerman. But that conclusion would be qualitative, because the studies' methods vary. "What we have done is to draw that conclusion more accurately through statistical analysis."
Setting the boundaries
Out of 63 studies, 53 showed a negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity, while 10 showed a positive one. Significant negative correlations were seen in 35 studies, whereas only two studies showed significant positive correlations.
The three psychologists have defined intelligence as the "ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly, and learn from experience." In short this is analytic intelligence, not the newly identified forms of creative and emotional intelligence, which are still subjects of dispute. In the various studies being examined, analytic intelligence has been measured in many different ways, including GPA (grade point average), UEE (university entrance exams), Mensa membership, and Intelligence Quotient (IQ) tests, among others.
Religiosity is defined as involvement in some (or all) facets of religion, which includes belief in the supernatural, offering gifts to this supernatural, and performing rituals affirming their beliefs. Other signs of religiosity were measured using surveys, church attendance, and membership in religious organizations.
Among the thousands of people involved in these studies, the authors found that gender or education made no difference to the correlation between religiosity and intelligence; however, age mattered. The negative correlation between religiosity and intelligence was found to be the weakest among the pre-college population. That may be because of the uniqueness of the college experience, where most teenagers leave home for the first time, get exposed to new ideas, and are given a higher degree of freedom to act on them. Instead, in pre-college years, religious beliefs may largely reflect those of the family.
The gifted, the atheists
Is there a chance that higher intelligence makes people less religious? Two sets of large-scale studies tried to answer this question.
The first are based on the Terman cohort of the gifted, started in 1921 by Lewis Terman, a psychologist at Stanford University. (The cohort is still being followed.) In the study, Terman recruited more than 1,500 children whose IQ exceeded 135 at the age of 10. Two studies used this data, one conducted by Robin Sears at Columbia University in 1995 and the other by Michael McCullough at the University of Miami in 2005, and they found that "Termites," as the gifted are called, were less religious when compared to the general public.
What makes these results remarkable is not just that these gifted folks were less religious, something that is seen among elite scientists as well, but that 60 percent of the Termites reported receiving "very strict" or "considerable" religious training while 33 percent received little training. Thus, almost all of the gifted Termites grew up to be less religious.
The second set of studies is based on students of New York's Hunter College Elementary School for the intellectually gifted. This school selects its students based on a test given at a young age. To study their religiosity, graduates of this school were queried when they were between the ages of 38 and 50. They all had IQs that exceeded 140, and the study found that only 16 percent of them derived personal satisfaction from religion (about the same number as the Termites).
So while the Hunter study did not control for factors such as socioeconomic status or occupation, it did find that high intelligence at a young age preceded lower belief in religion many years later.
Other studies on the topic have been ambiguous. A 2009 study, led by Richard Lynn of the University of Ulster, compared religious beliefs and average national IQs of 137 countries. In their sample, only 23 countries had more than 20 percent atheists, which constituted, according to Lynn, "virtually all higher IQ countries." The positive correlation between intelligence and atheism was a strong one, but the study came under criticism from Gordon Lynch of Birkbeck College, because it did not account for complex social, economical, and historical factors.
Overall, Zuckerman, Silberman, and Hall conclude that, according to their meta-analysis, there is little doubt a significant negative correlation exists (i.e. people who are more religious score worse on varying measures of intelligence). The correlation is more negative when religiosity measures beliefs rather than behavior. That may be because religious behavior may be used to help someone appear to be part of a group even though they may not believe in the supernatural.
So why do more intelligent people appear to be less religious? There are three possible explanations. One possibility is that more intelligent people are less likely to conform and, thus, are more likely to resist religious dogma. A 1992 meta-analysis of seven studies found that intelligent people may be more likely to become atheists when they live in religious societies, because intelligent people tend to be nonconformists.
The most common explanation is that intelligent people don't like to accept any beliefs that are not subject to empirical tests or logical reasoning. Zuckerman writes in the review that intelligent people may think more analytically, which is "controlled, systematic, and slow", as opposed to intuitively, which is "heuristic-based, mostly non-conscious, and fast." That analytical thinking leads to lower religiosity.
The final explanation is that intelligence provides whatever functions religion does for believers. There are four such functions as proposed by Zuckerman, Silberman, and Hall.
First, religion provides people a sense of control. This was demonstrated in a series of studies conducted between 2008 and 2010, which showed that threatening volunteers' sense of personal control increased their belief in God. This may be because people believe that God makes the world more predictable and thus less threatening. Much like believing in God, higher intelligence has been shown to grant people more "self-efficacy," which is the belief in one's ability to achieve goals. So, if intelligent people have more control, then perhaps they don't need religion in the same way that others do.
Second, religion provides self-regulation. In a 2009 study, it was shown that religion was associated with better well-being. This was interpreted as an indication that religious people were more disciplined in pursuing goals and deferring small rewards for large ones. Separately, a 2008 meta-analysis noted that intelligent people were less impulsive. Delayed gratification may require better working memory, which intelligent people have. So, just like before, intelligence is acting as a substitute for religion, helping people delay gratification without needing divine interventions.
Third, religion provides self-enhancement. A 1997 meta-analysis compared the intrinsically religious, who privately believe in the supernatural, to the extrinsically religious, where people are merely part of a religious group without believing in God. The intrinsically religious felt better about themselves than the general public. Similarly, intelligent people have been shown to have a sense of higher self-worth. Again, intelligence may be providing something that religion does.
Last, and possibly the most intriguing, is that religion provides attachment. Religious people often claim to have a personal relationship with God. They use God as an "anchor" when faced with the loss of a loved one or a broken relationship. Turns out intelligent people find their "anchor" in people by building relationships. Studies have found that those who score highly on measures of intelligence are more likely to be married and less likely to get divorced. Thus, intelligent people have less need to seek religion as a substitute for companionship.
Give me the caveats
This meta-analysis only targets analytic intelligence, which surely is not the full measure of human intelligence despite the ongoing debate about how to define the rest of it. Also, although the review encompasses all studies conducted from 1928 to 2012, it only does so for studies written in the English language (two foreign language studies were considered only because a translation was available). The authors believe there are similar studies conducted in Japan and Latin America, but they did not have the time or resources to include them.
Zuckerman also warns that, despite there being thousands of participants overall, ranging among all ages, almost all of them belong to Western society. More than 87 percent of the participants were from the US, the UK, and Canada. So after controlling for other factors, they can only confidently show strong negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity among American Protestants. For Catholicism and Judaism, the correlation may be less negative.
There are some complications to the explanations too. For example, the non-conformist theory of atheism cannot apply to societies where the majority are atheists, like Scandinavian countries. The possible explanations are also currently just that—possible. They need to be empirically studied.
Finally, not all studies reviewed are of equal quality, and some of them have been criticized by other researchers. But that is exactly why meta-analyses are performed. They help overcome limitations of sample size, poor data, and questionable analyses of individual studies.
As always, the word "correlation" is important. It hasn't been shown that higher intelligence causes someone to be less religious. So, it wouldn't be right to call someone a dimwit just because of their religious beliefs. Unless, of course, you are an ancient playwright looking to provoke your audience.
Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2013. DOI: 10.1177/1088868313497266 (About DOIs).


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What the heck is a tag?
A tag is a keyword or term that is used to describe the information in a conversation. Tags are a great way for you to easily find conversations based on their subject matter. For instance, if you wanted to find conversations about training, search for conversations with the tag "training".
What are my "Favorite Tags"?
Saving tags as favorites enables you to quickly find conversations you are interested in reading about. In the near future you'll also have the option of being notified every time a conversation appears with your favorite tags. For instance, if you wanted to hear about course-related information for an event, you'll want to save "Course" as a favorite tag. That way whenever a posting appears with course-related information, you'll be notified.
Helpful hints
Look at the Tag Cloud on the left side of the page to see the most popular tags!
A tag is a keyword or term that is used to describe the information you are sharing.
Tags are a way for other athletes to easily find conversations based on their subject matter.
For instance, if I wanted to find conversations about triathlon training for the New York Triathlon,
I may search for the tags "New York" and "Triathlon" and "training".
How do I use tags?
When starting a conversation on imATHLETE, you can use as many tags as is necessary to define the subject matter.
For instance, if you post a message saying:
"Does anybody know how to cure calf injuries when training for a marathon?"
You may want to use the following tags: injury, training, running, marathon
imATHLETE has already listed some of the most popular tags (you'll see them when you start typing in the tag text box).
You can add your own tags if you like, but we recommend using the imATHLETE ones if you want more people to view your conversation!